I really don't get how and - more importantly - why we moved from a common sense of "don't be a dick to other people" to the need to spell out pages and pages of behavioural guidelines.
OK, this is now totally off-topic WRT the original blog post, but... We had a very short code of conduct at SoCraTes Austria.
Then we thought about what might happen when we have a violation (endless discussions about whether that was actually a real violation and whether our response was justified, maybe even within the team).
So, we sat down and wrote a slightly longer version, which tries to spell out some unwanted behaviour and some guidlines for conference stuff ( http://socrates-conference.at/code-of-conduct/ ).
We also wanted to explain why we have the CoC in the first place and how we'd like people to behave. It surely is not perfect (probably too long and too short at the same time).
But if you think "don't be a dick to other people" would suffice as a CoC, imagine you are the organizer of an event, and then try to list all the things that might go wrong. Be creative - I'm sure you can imagine situations where it does not suffice.
Fair enough, but can you imagine a CoC that suffices in any situation? You will have situations where someone is acting out and at the same time you didn't think of it in your CoC and you will still be able to identify the behaviour as unacceptable, in most cases rather quickly.
So if I say "well actually..." on your conference I might get escorted out even if nobody took offense, but if I race around on my skates and make people uncomfortable because they are afraid I might run into them, that's fine because it doesn't really fall under any point mentioned in your CoC?
That's obviously nonsense. Just don't be a dick. And if you are, be a dick somewhere else.
Yes, I too wonder why all social issues can't easily be solved by 7 word phrases. I also find myself, like you, thinking that everyone has the same "common sense"!